[anonymouscodder]

My first experience with Linux was with Ubuntu 8.04 and I really enjoyed. Then I switched to OpenSUSE, just experience a different distribution with a different desktop.

I used OpenSUSE for some time and I was satisfied, but some KDE issues drove me crazy then I switched back to Ubuntu + Gnome.

But, I don't know, every time that a new Ubuntu version is released there is big changes in the 'feel' of the system usage, from a user perspective. And now it was announced that Ubuntu will use Unity instead of Gnome, and I'm really used to Gnome.

Of course I can set up the Gnome desktop even if the default desktop of the system isn't Gnome, but I wanna try something else. Searching a little bit I found Archlinux, and from what I saw (that isn't much) I liked it.

So, what I want is any feedback from who used or still using Archlinux, anything. And also any feedback about packman, I really prefer apt over OpenSUSE's zypper but I never really used any system with packman.

edit: ah, and I should add that I really like this 'Keep It Simple' philosophy around Arch.

This post has been edited by anonymouscodder: 14 December 2010 - 01:19 PM

[Lemur]

OpenBSD, good package support for the most part. NO STARTING GUI. You have to FTP to their package repo and download your own, whether it's gnome, JDE, or what have you. Stability is insane, customize as far as you can without hand modding the kernel. OpenBSD is built around security, the users are expected to learn good practices and not be spoonfed. I will warn you it's not something you want to do on a whim but the amount of technical knowledge you gain from experimentation and working with it will vastly surpass anything you get in most other distros (granted BSD isn't Linux but another Unix branch).

[xclite]

If you like apt, try something like Ubuntu or Debian with Openbox or xfce instead of Gnome. Crunchbang is a very intuitive version of Ubuntu (they're moving to Debian with the next release) that can be downloaded with either of those window managers installed.

http://crunchbanglinux.org/

[SegFaulty]

Arch can be very powerful, and it will definitely teach you a thing or two if you've never messed around with how the system does things. Be ready to have to set up all autodetection of cds and usbs, etc.

I found pacman to be a very powerful package manager, although you'll need something else (most people seem to use YAOURT) if you want to access the AUR, and trust me, you will. The documentation is very well done, but the IRC community definitely suffers from elitism. The only problem I ever really ran into was a period of time where I had server issues because the servers I used to get packages weren't up to date, but that in time fixes itself.

[anonymouscodder]

Thank you for the replies.

BSD looks good, but for now maybe is too much for me. I tried Debian but the repositories got like old versions of what I was used to because all that stability policy and I also got some problems. I tried crunchbang on my eee pc before, don't know what desktop is that but I have to say: I didn't like. Crunchbang looks good, but it's not my taste.

SegFaulty, on 14 December 2010 - 06:35 PM, said:

Arch can be very powerful, and it will definitely teach you a thing or two if you've never messed around with how the system does things. Be ready to have to set up all autodetection of cds and usbs, etc.

I found pacman to be a very powerful package manager, although you'll need something else (most people seem to use YAOURT) if you want to access the AUR, and trust me, you will. The documentation is very well done, but the IRC community definitely suffers from elitism. The only problem I ever really ran into was a period of time where I had server issues because the servers I used to get packages weren't up to date, but that in time fixes itself.

Yeah, I'll definitely install Archlinux.

SegFaulty, on 14 December 2010 - 06:35 PM, said:

but the IRC community definitely suffers from elitism

Oh, I really hate that.

[Lemur]

OpenBSD, for the most part, is one of the most complex things to get working, but that's because the entire purpose of the OS is to be completely secure, not user friendly. It becomes quickly apparent at first as you try and work with it that this is the case, and I would advise you to dedicate an entire day to get it working with a GUI unless you have one heck of a documentation on it.

Just get an old junk tower from either a school or other such source, it needs next to nothing to run, the ISO is about 300mB I believe. Use that and a switch and you have an instant server.

Once you get the hang of it you'll be surprised how much more streamlined it is. I like it quite a bit, none of the extra junk windows insists on running in the background, only the absolutely necessary. If you learn how to use command line and vim you're in amazing shape, I actually prefer them to using ftp/sql servers and coding php in a notepad or other IDE. It's just cleaner is what it comes down to.